“Design thinking is a nonsensical phrase that deserves to die” – Don Norman

June 8, 2010

Don Norman at IIT Design Research Conference 2010:

“You gotta be careful too, because there are a lot of these research methods, like the rapid prototyping, like the ideation, like the brainstorming methods, like the ethnography, and so on, there is actually no real evidence that it makes a difference. Apple computer is a good example. You think they do design research? No. When I was at Apple, we did a lot of design research […] We did a lot. We worried about all these fundamental things. We did user studies. We went to people’s homes. […] You know what Steve jobs did when he arrived? He fired all of us! And guess what resulted? Better products! Which have revolutionized the way we use machines. And he fired the usability groups as well.” – Don Norman at DRC 2010

It’s worth watching the whole video – but you can fast forward to 13m20s to see the part quoted.

12 comments

I’ve been asked to add my opinion so here it is: Don is being deliberately inflammatory to encourage thought and discussion on the subject. He also has (in my opinion) a slightly dated view that design & UX research still has it’s roots in academia. A lot of us simply don’t fit that view these days.

The title of your post will make controversial.
At the beginning, I confess that I felt fear. But after to watch the conference of Norman, I am agree with him in some items, others no.
In my opinion, research must have a purpose for market. This purpose is a successful product. Design research without objective do not work.
Ux practitioners we must understand numbers. For me this is the key of successful products.
We must design for solve problems.

I think you’re doing Don Norman a disservice by picking out this one portion of his forty minute talk to be the topic of your post.

Norman did say that “design thinking is a nonsensical phrase that deserves to die,” but he qualified it by saying “design thinking isn’t magical.” That all creative persons, no matter their field, do creative thinking which design has adopted for its own. This I agree with, having both a technical and arts background.

I feel this talk is geared more to the businesses who have latched onto the latest catch phrase, “design thinking.” Researchers know what their deliverables are, as do industry professionals. Business leaders, on the other hand, who are determined to carry on the success of their business, and rightly so, are looking for the next big thing. And if that next big thing is this magical design thinking, then so be it.

As Norman said, there is nothing wrong with research for research’s sake, or design for design’s sake, or art for art’s sake. The issue comes when research is meant to inform product design. Sure, Steve Jobs fired all the design researchers and usability analysts when he arrived at Apple, but I don’t feel there is a direct correlation between firing those professionals and spitting out brilliant products the way Norman implies. Those products still required iteration, trial-and-error, market research, etc. Are these not forms of research, design or not?

As said by a previous commenter, if one wants to apply research to industry, there needs to be a purpose for it. Any good research plan will be explicit in its objective, even if that objective changes mid-project. Therefore, to throw research into an organization without having a purpose for its presence is simply ludicrous and a waste of resources.

User experience design has taught me that as designers we must be deliberate with our choices, that each design facet must have a purpose. It doesn’t matter if the purpose comes before or after the design innovation, as long as it’s there. So what if design research comes after the design innovation? The fact is we still need to understand what our innovation is doing “in the wild,” and research gives us a start in doing so. We won’t know if ethnographic methodologies, contextual inquiries, etc, have “evidential proof” until we’ve given them a chance and gathered said evidence–whether for or against.

All this said, thanks for posting this video. It’s given me a lot to think about.

Completely agree with you Binaebi. In retrospect I edited the post title and the quote a bit too ‘tight’, without quite the context it quite deserved. Still, public speakers like Don know what they’re doing when they say something wildly inflammatory like that. It gets attention.

Eusebio – I remember back at the beginning of the 2000s, researchers in industry still did whacky academic stuff. The purpose of existence, for them, was to get publications and conference appearances. As far as I know, that died out.

These days, employers just don’t care if their research staff have created widely cited conceptual frameworks or they’ve had a great hit rate on their journal submissions this year. These days it’s all about KPIs and impact on revenue generation.

Thanks for posting this. I rather enjoyed the talk and think that here, with the help of Roberto Verganti, Norman has begun to make sense of the frustration he has clearly felt in the past with ‘design research’. It’s quite a step forward from his rants in Interactions (which I’ve commented on here: http://brain-attic.blogspot.com/2010/04/don-normans-view-of-user-research-some.html). And I found his S-shaped curves and jumps between curves a really helpful metaphor. Personally I’m very happy to be involved in the business of incremental innovation, climbing up those Ss. But, of course, being involved in jumps in thinking are particularly exciting.
Norman does make a habit of over-stating his case to provoke a reaction. Usually there is a kernel of truth in what he says, which is why, I suppose, we’re still listening.